Nimbyed

Can't have our homeless shelter mucking up the scenery. Gotta protect the precious eyes of Airbnb tourists and real estate investors THE CHILDREN in Central City.  Better to warehouse them out of sight somewhere with all the other undesirables.

Amid protests from a chorus of political leaders and nearby residents, Mayor Mitch Landrieu apparently is reconsidering plans to build a homeless shelter in Central City near two schools, just a week before a city agency was set to approve the deal.

Landrieu has asked the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority to delay by a month a vote to close on the city’s planned $750,500 purchase of 3101 Erato St., a former boxing gym that was to be converted to house the "low-barrier" shelter.

In the interim, officials will consider two potential alternatives, Landrieu spokesman Tyronne Walker said late Tuesday.

“We promised all stakeholders and community members that we would seriously consider all of their feedback and all of their ideas,” Walker said. “And today is an example of us doing that.”

Sites now in contention are the old Veterans Affairs hospital on Perdido Street and the former Israel Augustine Middle School building at Tulane and South Broad avenues, he said. Neither site is near an open public school, unlike the Erato Street site.